Frensham Village Churches

Letter from the Vicarage - January 2016

“It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life… and I’m feelin’
fine!”It’s a new
day, it’s a new month, it’s a New Year…how are you feeling? Fine? Or are you struggling…?

I ask this
because globally it was a difficult end to 2015 what withall the floods in Cumbria and all the violent
problems in the Middle East causing the refugee situation, not to mention all
the fear and grief the terrorist attacks caused.So to pick ourselves up and start a New Year
with any confidence may take tremendous effort this year – sometimes we need a
nudge, a reminder or a sign to help us get going.

Some of you
may have noticed a new addition, or to be correct, a restored adornment to St
Mary’s Church tower – a beautiful working weathervane with a golden cockerel
exuberantly crowing in the new day. In the 18th and 19th
centuries St Mary’s Church tower had a weathervane with a cockerel. When it
broke – I think possibly after a storm – the cockerel was lost but the
weathervane kept going until the late 20th century (it got so rusted
up that Dennis Shepheard used to kick it to get it going!) but it was never
restored – until now.

In the Bible, the cockerel is, of course, reminiscent of Simon Peter's
denial of Jesus three times before he was crucified (Matthew 26:34, 69-75; Luke
22:34, 54-62; Mark 14:30, 66-72). When John Cooksley (its designer and maker)
came to a special service of blessing of the weathervane before it was erected,
he particularly explained about the difference between his design of the
cockerel and the one that caused the guilt Peter felt when the cockerel crowed.
John’s cockerel was about a ‘new dawn, a new day, and a new life!’ No less than
a call to wake up and be thankful for the day and for life itself!’

It is particularly poignant for a church to have a cockerel because
Easter Day when Christ rose from the dead was a day of new dawning for the world. It was the day when
humanity realised God was not only real - a real and living presence to believe in - but also that
God had truly come to be with us and to live among us, and to die that we might
learn and develop in God's Love and Life, and become a new creation... and by His rising on Easter morning, His ascension
and incredible pouring out of the Holy Spirit we can know the joy of Eternal
Life - not only at the end of life - but actually 'in' this life! This is a
game-changer because it means we can change - and change in this life NOW!

God's Love can change our poor attitudes, change our hard hearts to
flesh from stone (Ezekiel 36:26) and therefore change how we are and what we
do. What a wake-up call! We can stop
hurting each other and the world...and we
can stop being victims. We can actively work for peace and healing, but we
first need to wake up and realise that the gift of life that God has given us
is so very precious, and that we need
to stop putting a hex on God’s creation! It is only humanity that is causing
the destruction so we need to develop
and get through our aggressively egotistic ambitions and our addictive craving
for power and control, and work for peace and justice. But we cannot do this on
our own. We need a Greater Power than humanity and we need to be shown the way
so that we might become a new creation too.

Jesus Christ was the conduit of God's Love - the Way, the Truth and the Life.
The arrow on the weather vane points in all directions as the wind and weather
moves it. The weather is very changeable - but God's Love and Life is the
Eternal Constant of all creation and is what keeps us steady...and this gives
us hope, and hope gives us the energy and endurance to work for the good of all
creation.

In this time of global unrest with all problems with climate change, terrorism,
violence and knee jerk reactions (which tend to escalate the problems rather
than solve them) - not to mention the refugee situation as well as all the
anxiety, fear, anger and bewilderment which are rife in the world at present;
may we look to God for guidance and know that God's arrow points to love, to
peace, to loving our neighbours, to reconciliation and to Life.

God said "I lay before you life and death- choose Life!"(Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

May we not deny Jesus Christ as Peter did, but acknowledge that God came within
Him to bring a New Dawning to the world. This New Year may we all (as we look
upon the shining cockerel on the church tower) wake up, learn, evolve and
become peaceable people in God's Love. Peace starts at home and then flows out
to our neighbours.

I do pray, almost as a New Year resolution, that you together with, and
as, your church here, may become a beacon of love and peace – and I do pray
especially for those who inflict violence and death upon others – that they may
wake up out of their brainwashing, be utterly changed, repent and ask
forgiveness for the hurt they have caused. It takes a lot to change brainwashed
minds but it is possible when the
majority of humanity is working for peace, and with education and learning. And
may we remember that we can also be brainwashed, frail, opinionated, gullible
and angry and even violent at times, and also ask for the grace of Jesus who
said "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do..."